


Silver Glass (Broken That I Am)

by Firedawn (Serpyre)



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Wings, Angst, Arrow (TV 2012) Season 5, Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-09
Updated: 2019-11-09
Packaged: 2021-01-26 12:00:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21373810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serpyre/pseuds/Firedawn
Summary: In another world, when you are loved, you grow wings to show it. The bigger the love, the bigger the wings.Evelyn doesn’t have any to show for a long time. AU.
Relationships: Nyssa al Ghul/Sara Lance, Rory Regan/Evelyn Sharp
Kudos: 13





	Silver Glass (Broken That I Am)

She’d lost her wings ten days after Damien Darhk murdered her parents.

Evelyn didn’t expect it to go. Not so quickly. First, she’d held on to its warmth—sobbed into the furls until her tears reflected silver too. No one was there to comfort her, and that was _okay, _she was _fine—_until her wings had slowly gone too.

She didn’t expect it to go. Evelyn’d heard it all around her, brought up by her parents—been told that the wings represented their love, and said that even when they’re gone the love would stay, lingered on like it was supposed to—forever. How stupid and sappy they were, and how naive she once was. And most of all how undeniably _false _that statement were.

It was there for a while, after her parents had died. Hadn’t shrunk instantaneously, even as she sobbed to the sirens, and then she thought it might’ve been _okay._ Then, it’d grown smaller and smaller like the waning crescent till it was like it never existed at all.

Evelyn doesn’t believe in an afterlife. She doesn’t, because if they’d existed, if afterlives did exist and her parents were out there somewhere—as spirits or apparitions or anything else, like how the pastors would always jabber on about during unwilling sessions at church— then why were her wings gone?

So she’d taken one last look at her wings, a stubble of where it’s used to be, and the anger’s hollow in her heart. Evelyn doesn’t know how to fill it—but she had an idea.

Beginning with Damien Darhk.

.

The Green Arrow stops her.

In the middle of a ballroom while she’s playing a Canary—a bird of clipped wings, one that didn’t have any like _her. _It’s supposed to be symbolic, but she thinks the Green Arrow’s missed all of that when he descends from the sky and barks at her to drop her damn gun, like he wasn’t the one responsible killing _them _or responsible for making her wings like it were now—missing, nonexistent, disgusting, _gone_.

He tries to talk it out. She screams, but her cry’s gone. And then the Canary’s muted along with her clipped wings and soon she has to flee and fly like a broken bird.

_He_ stops her. _Him, _imposing, large, two pairs of large emerald wings to back up his threat. A low growl that told her he knew _nothing _of what she’s lost, _nothing _of what she’s gone through—that said he only cared about those he knew and the criminals and that only.

Fuck him.

.

He tries to recruit her.

The Green Arrow tries to fucking _recruit _her.

It’s ridiculous, it’s crazy, and Evelyn doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry. But in the end she sneers, and stalks off away from the Arrow’s shadow, as the dome of the night’s sea shines above.

She doesn’t need to live under a murderer’s wings.

.

But she talks with those who go.

She looks at them from the rooftops, at night. It’s surprisingly easy to track, once you know the Green Arrow’s identity.

Rory. Ragman, they call him, but he’s Rory Regan to her—because it’s how he introduced himself. Others, not so same. Wilddog, some dude who wore a hockey mask and a stick who likes to beat up criminals in the middle of the night—when he’s not getting his ass handed to him. Another with a similar getup and Evelyn wonders if they’re deliberately going with a theme. And of course, another fucking Canary, if you would. Or two more—few’s spawned in this city, she remembered one coming back after a vacation of a sort—Evelyn can’t even keep track of it anymore.

But she isn’t one of them. She’s tired of being a Canary. A bird with clipped wings, a voice welded shut with nobody to cry to. The lineage stretches—broken blondes, and Evelyn knows she’s always going to be a mark in one of them. But she doesn’t have to be anymore.

So she pulls on a hood, wears a suit she’s made with leather and iron, and calls herself Artemis, goddess of the night.

.

Rory visits her. Shows up at random; sometimes with flowers, with the intention of eliciting a blush but receiving a scowl instead; other times, in a garb of rags and a voice modulator to par, and Evelyn doesn’t realise how well a date with rags could go until the first time he’d shown up like that, matched with the coordinates to Church’s latest position courtesy to Felicity.

They don’t kiss. Rory doesn’t attempt it. Evelyn certainly doesn’t.

And once, when she’s peeled off the suit from her chest and went into a shower to wash the blood from her bones, she catches a glance of her dull wings in the mirror. She blinks twice, because she’s sure her vision’s lying to her, but it’s like the stubble grows.

Two days after that realisation, Evelyn trumps into the hideout where the vigilantes go to, with her wings tighter against her back because she thinks the suit might not fit it all in— and sees Rory’s wings—red and large like a heart, two inches longer than it was before. He grins with pride, parades it around like he’s proud of his own.

Evelyn doesn’t mention it. She tucks her own against her back further, tight under her suit, and hopes that her suit’s not tight enough that it betrays its shape and size underneath. 

.

Adrian doesn’t have wings, like her.

He meets her, in the midst of night, atop a rooftop that seemed abandoned—a shell of what the rest of the city would become, he tells. His name is Prometheus, his armour’s of rags and stone—but it’s not like Rory, whose’ rags are used to protect and serve. Prometheus’ are to deceive; to meld and morph in with the common crowd, in a call to serve for the greater good—when really, was it that or insanity?

Prometheus tells Artemis of his plan; when the full moon shines silver above, spreads his arms and shows her his bare back of stumps like he isn’t any threat. But the news that blazes every 6 am of three more murdered or six slaughtered, found alone in their homes, tell her she knows better.

But it makes her feel safe, oddly. Evelyn thinks it’s funny, because she’s pairing up with a serial killer that’s no better than Oliver Queen—perhaps worse, even. But it’s not the same—because Adrian didn’t have wings, for he’d hacked it off to its very stumps— because they who have none, they who know they didn’t _deserve it,_ stick together.

Murderers don’t have wings. And Queen certainly didn’t deserve his.

.

She’s vengeful, pissy, and in a dire need of a break when Nyssa and Sara crosses her path.

It wasn’t expected. She was going to blow Church up, and do it, _alone_. It’d all gone to plan. She caught Church in her trap with direction from Adrian—unsuspecting assilants are one’s worst nightmare. But they show up when Evelyn’s expecting to negotiate the prisoners with Oliver Queen, the bloody _Arrow _that thinks it’s his sainted game to save everyone.

The assassin and the Canary take one long look at her, and under her hood she bares her teeth, growls out a warning upon the beam. But then with a whisk and a clack the grapple throws her legs under her, and jarring black overwhelms her vision—and she’s gone.

.

They don’t mention the hood when they patch her up.

Or mention the lost presence of the gargantuan wings that were supposed to be on her back; now ragged and cragged and broken and small like a stupid plaything a child would’ve had.

Evelyn wonders when it’ll fade entirely. It’ll at least be easier than seeing the damn thing in the mirror everyday, mocking and taunting because it was smaller than a baby’s own furls. It taunts her and Evelyn thinks that someday she’ll stop laughing along with the joke too, when it was all gone.

Oliver Queen’s bound to stop caring sometime. Rory, too. Especially Rory. If he’d known what she’d done, then Evelyn wouldn’t be surprised to see her wings shrink overnight.

But the two assassins don’t question her; don’t bring it up either. Even when they pry the sticky fabric away from her skin—Evelyn’s pretty sure it’s like that because of the blood—and begin to wash and bandage the remains of the damned thing that was left.

Evelyn lets them. She doesn’t know why they don’t judge—actually, the fact that they were assassins pretty much covers it. Born for death, with no-one to care about them. Well, except for the Canary. Everyone loves the Canary.

Especially the assassin decked in red that stares at the Canary like she’s some sort of angel or prize. Evelyn doesn’t ask, but she has a good idea why.

They don’t ask her about anything—hell, she’s surprised that they didn’t even tie her up after she’s woken up screaming. For two assassins, the Canary and the Demon are courteous. Bringing her a drink and patching up her injuries after.

And though she might’ve woken up screaming for their deaths and for the botched operation and the negotiations, Evelyn appreciates it.

So before getting off the counter, she says her name: “Evelyn.’’

It comes as a croak, and Evelyn realises it’s the first she’s said her own since her parents died.

They stare at her, and Evelyn stares right back, until the Canary finally nods, and Evelyn thinks she understands. So she slips off the counter, cradles her wounds under her arms, and trudges away from the broken home.

.

She visits ever so often.

Sara slipped her an address, the first time Evelyn’s met them, in her pockets after she’s patched her up. She’d found it during a walk back to her house, when she’d stuffed her hands into her jeans and felt the paper there.

They let her in. Sometimes they go on missions—they don’t ask, they don’t waver, they don’t question her. All the better—when you’re working for Adrian Chase, sometimes it’s better if your allies don’t ask what’s it for. Sometimes it’s just rest—when the landlord visits her house and she has to get out of there and leave a note pretending to be her father like he’s gone off to some vacation and not dead. Using Queen money, Evelyn supposes, has its benefits.

But every time, Nyssa and Sara are always there. They don’t talk to her—not much in missions, even less in the safehouses—and Evelyn always has her hood on.

But they talk more than Queen’s ever talked her for. More than Adrian, more than Oliver’s damn trainees—maybe, almost on par with Rory, if she comes to think about it. And the more she speaks, even if it’s something as simple as asking for a bandage or wondering out loud what food they had for a quick lunch, Evelyn finds it easier to untangle the knot in her throat.

Nyssa and Sara reply. The Demon and the Canary—it’s weird, but Evelyn feels odd with them. A feeling that’s stuck in her stomach yet it’s warm like a weird knot. And if she thinks— it’s almost comfortable. But every time it’s brought up she wards it away, and lets herself go with the flow of bitter bile in her heart.

Evelyn looks in the mirror every session after. She knows it’s ridiculous and pandering and all stupid, but she still looks. Turns around and pulls up half her shirt to reveal a pair of flimsy, dirty-grey wings, and strains it to see if it’s gotten any larger.

Her wings tug every time, but never grows large enough for her to see it without turning her back to the mirror.

.

Adrian wants intel.

Pictures, names, and locations. Only three things; yet, it was enough to ruin someone’s life. _Anybody’s _life.

Prometheus says he knows that she knows their identities. That they trust her, somewhat, on rouge team-up missions if there came the need. And he whispers in her ear like the devil’s advocate—tells her that he understands why she wants revenge, that this’s how she’ll get it.

It’s tempting. Wilddog. Renee. Ragman. Rory. Canary. Dinah. Arrow. Queen.

(But he already knows that).

She can give it to him. Just names and locations and places, and Prometheus would sweep in to deal with the rest.

The Demon. Nyssa al Ghul. The Canary. Sara Lance.

Ragman. Rory Regan.

It’s names. Just names and locations, Evelyn knows, that makes it seem like a simple exchange; the names for the Green Arrow, and yet—

Yet the price of it comes too high.

Nyssa. Sara. Rory. They—Evelyn shouldn’t care, not really, because for god’s sake she’s betrayed them all when she first found Adrian during that little trip with Rory and negotiated for Oliver Queen’s death. She shouldn’t care, not when her real family’s gone and dead, burned away in that warehouse the Arrow didn’t bother saving. Not when her wings are shrunken dry and too _broken_ to even pass as some anymore.

And yet.

They cared. Shown it carefully in their gestures; Sara, when she passed her a drink after their training sessions and nodded once in approval when she saw her wearing the Birds’ badge on her chest, the Canary’s symbol in all its glory in its dying light; Nyssa, when she trained her with knives and swords and shot her with arrows with no hesitation to boost, and patched up the wounds’ she’d sustain after because she was training her how not to _die; _Rory, a wry grin on his face whenever he’d ask her out to a hunt like he was Orion to her Artemis— pelting her in roses and flowers that made Evelyn think that they could almost, _almost _be normal.

Like their lives weren’t destroyed by those around them.

_Oliver Queen. Felicity Smoak. _Even their names were bile on her tongue. 

Nyssa, Sara, and Rory’s—weren’t. They weren’t her family—was decidedly not, would never _be. _But her wings that’d shrunk to its core when her parents died, shrivelled and withered like a dying plant had grown—an inch, maybe a little more, but it was still there. It existed. In her spite and in her hate she’d growl at the goddamned thing and shook it off with disgust—like she didn’t spend hours checking the mirror, straining for something she’d hoped was there. She doesn’t think it but Evelyn knows what it signifies.

Evelyn—

Evelyn doesn’t give it to him.

.

She’s beaten up.

Adrian uses everything on her. In a prison that’s meant for her friends—with tools of torture that she was supposed to use.

Evelyn can’t recall it. Not fifteen, ten, five minutes after the last session—she’s too immersed to remember the past torture. Her mind’s mush and broken when Adrian goes about his drawls—the interludes are all too short. And she can barely brace herself until he starts again.

Evelyn resists it. As long as she could. But her body’s too frail—too weak. Because in it all, she’s still a teen—still a child.

And she can’t fight against Adrian Chase, a grown man. Especially not when now he’s the one that’s vengeful, pissed, and mad—and she’s now his Oliver Queen, she’s the one choking out blood amid a cracked grin, that’s wiped away when he began his next torture.

She can’t feel anything. Not when he stomps on her back—not when her vision jars black and red. But she hears a crack, and—

The little of wings she has left break.

After that, it’s a sickly stream. She can’t remember it all—she doesn’t think she can. It goes on for too long, and the agony makes it all worse. But she knows—knows so clearly, so painfully clearly, because his screams force it in her mind, so much her own psyche screams at her too—that she breaks.

And then—

The wind knocks out of her chest.

Then she registers the pain that explodes hot red in her brain.

Her throat’s stuck in a scream that resounds for miles.

Through her ears she feels Adrian’s victory laugh. ****

Evelyn feels sick. And hurt. God it hurts all over and doesn’t stop.

And when the laughter falters, the dread in her heart rises, and another slam comes crashing black into her vision—

Evelyn—

Evelyn knows she dies.

. ****

Evelyn doesn’t die.

She’s rushed to the general hospital. That’s what she knows, and they tell her three days later after she’s gotten out of her coma that they thought she wouldn’t wake up—lists off the conditions they were sure she would be in.

Brain-damage. After the water-boarding and how the air’s been cut off from her brain for minutes. Caused swelling in her brain—disrupted the neurons and the transmissions. How they were sure there would be some sort of residual damage left.

Spinal-damage. Because of how many times Adrian had slammed anything he could find on her back—red-hot iron, crowbars, his feet and his working boots. Evelyn can’t move her legs, but they tell her it’s because of the bruising. It’d heal with time.

Limbs. Eyes. Head. They list it all off—and Evelyn’s ears are soon too fuzzy to listen anymore. Everything aches, and she wants sleep— badly.

But before her eyelids could flutter back to the dreamworld, a mesh of a place without pain, a warmth squeezes her hand.

Her eyes fly open, partially in pain and partially in surprise, and though her vision’s blurry, she makes out the person beside her. Rory Regan, Staring at her with a slight smile. Above—Nyssa and Sara, behind him, their faces marks in concern.

There’s something heavy on her back. Evelyn strains. The nurses’ eyes go wide as they rush to her side—Rory squeezes her palm and tells her not to move—Nyssa and Sara exchange worried looks—the machine beeps. Evelyn ignores it and twists her head to the side— and her eyes catch silver.

Evelyn looks at her wings without a mirror, wide and broad, soft and silver like it reflects the moon’s light. She runs a finger over the furls—they almost bounce at her touch—and she feels a bitter smile worm itself to her face—because her wings are there, whole and silver and whole again; even as they tell her to stop, even as the monitor spikes.

A chuckle bubbles to the surface of Evelyn’s lips— a tear slips from her eyes.

Her wings are silver again.

She laughs. Throaty, loud—the machines shriek. And all she sees is the path in the night’s sky out the shimmering window and the glistening silver that runs down, drops to the bed.

She laughs. They’re desperate—she doesn’t care. Not of the bitter irony; not of this life. Her wings are whole again— and she’s going to meet them.

Evelyn laughs.

(Evelyn dies.)

**Author's Note:**

> Fun story: I was thinking about all the incomplete Wings AU stories I had and how it was basically my curse when I remembered I had this. So I re-read it and because there’s not enough Evelyn Sharp specific content, here we go!
> 
> <s>I apologise for the ending—</s>
> 
> Inspired by Book_freak’s Wings AU: (https://archiveofourown.org/works/6062662/chapters/13897726) and obviously, this tumblr post: http://inkskinned.com/post/138673319039/in-another-world-when-you-are-loved-you-grow 
> 
> Would love your thoughts :) Pay me a visit at @fireserpyre on tumblr to yell at me about anything :D


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